Hit Makers

This might be the most important question for every creator and maker in the world: How do you make something new, if most people just like what they know? Is it possible to surprise with familiarity?

That’s why Simonson and Rosen have named their theory “absolute value.” The Internet, they say, will be a brand-assassinating technology, flooding the world with information and drowning out the signal of advertising for many products.

A book that sells one million copies in a year in the United States is a runaway bestseller—that 99 percent of the country didn’t buy. If ten million U.S. households watch a new show, it’s a smash hit—that 90 percent of households never saw. If fifty million people buy a ticket to see a film, it’s the year’s biggest blockbuster—which more than 80 p

“A reader’s favorite subject is the reader.”

This is the first thesis of the book. Most consumers are simultaneously neophilic—curious to discover new things—and deeply neophobic—afraid of anything that’s too new. The best hit makers are gifted at creating moments of meaning by marrying new and old, anxiety and understanding. They are architects of familiar surprises.

“Every bit of consumer research we’ve ever done shows only one consistent thing: Radio is the number one driver of sales and the biggest predictor of a song’s success,” says Dave Bakula, senior vice president of analytics at Nielsen, which tracks music sales and airplay. “You almost invariably see the biggest songs hit radio first, then pick up [in

Audiences like art that gives them the jolt of meaning that often comes from an inkling of recognition.

Indeed, many of us suffer from ideological “burn-in”—the unfortunate imprinting of biases from stories and exposure.

The top 1 percent of bands and solo artists now earn about 80 percent of all recorded music revenue.